Monday, September 26, 2016

Hiya Lost Coasters! Today I have two quick projects up for the "Anything Goes" challenge that I wanted to tell you a little bit about and hopefully get your imagination and hands busy creating. :)

I just got some of the Nuance powdered pigments this month and have been having lots of fun playing with these. Just a tiny sprinkle of powder and some spritzes of water = hours of entertainment! (OK, so I am easily entertained. But you probably will be too--these powders are COOL!)

The first project I wanted to share with you is this card to usher in October:

This was made by sprinkling autumnal colors of the powder onto white watercolor paper, keeping the sprinkles mostly to one side of the card. I then sprayed the paper with several spritzes of water. Where you use more water, the color runs and flows together, as in the big splash of fiery red and orange on this piece; drier specks of powder can also be seen moving away from the "splash" area, which gives an interesting textured look. (You might have to enlarge the pic to get a good look at this effect.) The amount you spray is up to you! Dryish or wet, these powdered pigments look fantastic, and the colors are beautiful.

Next I took two Lost Coast Designs stamps: an abstract background from the ATC Grunge Set, and the Gothic text block from ATC Text Set 1. To ink them, I stamped into the still-wet "splash" from the Nuance powders; I wanted to carry over the colors from the splash, so I stamped the abstract grunge set stamp into the white area of the card, then stamped the Gothic text block several times to add depth and interest to the splash area. It's OK that the text is wet and messy--it's just to add texture and isn't supposed to be legible. No need to be careful with this technique!

I then gave the whole thing a spritz of heirloom gold shimmer spray...you know, because I like shiny stuff. (Actually, it's super subtle in real life, the shimmer--I didn't use much!)

After drying this background with my trusty heat tool, I then composed the word "October" using the Rustic Alphabet Set and embossed it with a mixture of green and copper embossing powders for a sort of verdigris patina look. Then I used a bullet-tipped embossing ink pen and wrote the word "welcome" and embossed it too.

I edged the card with chalk inks...mounted it on a shimmery pale gold card that I edged with heirloom gold metallic ink...then mounted the whole thing on piece of green cardstock, which I daubed with chalk ink for a soft sort of suede-y look in real life. And that was it for that project!

Now, for the second project that I made for "Anything Goes" using my new Nuance powders. :) What is special about this ATC is the "cracked-glass effect" that I used to make it seem like the card is encased under a piece of...well, cracked glass. :) If you want to learn how to do this easy and fun technique, go have a look at the tutorial up on my blog and tell me what you think!

I made these two fun square shaped cards featuring stamps from our newest line of Zentangle stamps, Zentangle Squares and Creatures! They are so much fun to play with and so versatile. You can colour up a storm or go traditional Zentangle and work only in black and white with pencil shading like I've done on these two.

For the fish one I used Zentangle Square One with Zentangle Checker Fish because all the circles reminded me of bubbles in water. Both images were stamped with Onyx Black Versafine ink but on the background square I first inked up the stamp, stamped off most of the ink on another piece of cardstock and then stamped the image for my project. I then re-inked the stamp, wiped off the ink in the areas I wanted the grey image to show with a baby wipe and over stamped the design to achieve the solid black areas. I then coloured and added shading to both images with a graphite pencil and blended with a tortillon stick.

For the cat one I used Zentangle Square Two with Zentangle Cat because the swirled pattern reminded me of a ball of wool (yarn) and I added in some squiggly lines too with a black Copic fineliner. I also applied Black Soot Distress Ink to the background square.

I then trimmed and cut out all the images, layered on black cardstock and added everything to white folded cards made from sheets of white cardstock. I then embellished them with black and white Inkssentials Enamel Accents.

Here's a look at the other stamps in our Zentangle line.

Thanks for stopping by to see my projects today!
Happy Stamping and have a great weekend!

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Hi all! It's Nan with a stamp fellow I have felt a kindred spirit with from day one I say him! In a cookie cutter world, he is like me an odd duck and I love that! He has an official name "Face with Tongue" at Lost Coast Designs but I have always called him Tongue Guy and he likes that name, too! So by the colors I used you can tell what I am in the mood for and getting all ready for.....orange, black, mystery....Halloween, anyone?

Still lots of time to get in on our "Anything Goes" Challenge at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity; these are the greatest cause anything goes :) And keep in touch with the Portal for all the fabulous upcoming events we have around the corner! I wouldn't miss it for the world and you shouldn't either! Share the fun I say so come see us and find out all the ways to win goodies from our stores!

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Hello Everyone,
Karen here today to share a fun project! Now, you are going to love the stamp that I used on my project. It is really outrageous. That is one of the things I love about Lost Coast Designs; the stamps are so unique. I paired this "Diva" with a bright border in contrasting colors. Awesome cool!

Monday, September 5, 2016

Today we have a brand new challenge at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity, Anything Goes. As much as I like the challenge of creating to a theme, its fun to be free and create whatever your heart desires :)

I have used this gorgeous stamp, its her first inking, and I loved her even more than I thought I would. Meet Feather Diva with Face :

For this card I created a water color background with nuance powders and a water spray bottle. I firstly added the orange and red, then when it was dry I added the blue across the top and made it run with the water.

Feather Diva was stamped into the background in black, then I also stamped her onto plain white card stock and also onto a co-ordinating colorised piece of card stock. This was all fussy cut, her face and feathers colored with copics. I paper pieced her dress. I used a charcoal pencil to add some shadows and the ground. I like to ground my images, rather have them floating. I also used a saying from Travel Quotes and lightly stamped images from the travel stuff set in the background.

Thanks for stopping by, and go and check out the other inspiration from the DT for this challenge, and more :) We have regular events and giveaways, its lots of fun at the Lost Coast Portal to Creativity :)

HIP 2 BE SQUARE!

Have you checked out all the fabulous SQUARE LCDesigner and Guest Designer inspiration and joined the fun? Hop on over and catch up quickity split! You've still got time to get your SQUARE projects in for the chance to win a shopping spree at Lost Coast Designs and or Carmen's Veranda! Linky party closes at 5 to midnight PST on Sept 4th!

You can use ANY stamp companies to enter all our monthly events and challenges but if you use our Lost Coast Designs or Carmen's Veranda stamps..and we do LOVE it when you do...then your entry counts as two in our DT Faves voting and doubles your chances at winning our prizes!

Update on our nasty GREMLIN ATTACK!
Our websites were down for a few days but we're pleased to announce that all the Gremlins were rounded up and now we've just got Gizmo keeping an eye on your orders! Phew!

Next up for September is our monthly Challenge which starts on Sept 5th....our challenges always start on the first Monday of the month and end on the 25th! Come and join us!

Event-wise the LCDesigners are taking September to prepare for the most
anticipated event of the year, the annual 31 Days of Halloween blog hop
which starts on October 1st! We are participating as a Wicked Blogger
again this year and that means we are sharing one project every single
day for 31 days straight! Oh Yeah! It's exhausting but its always so
much wicked good fun! We dare you to join us and countdown to Halloween
with us in Lost Coast style!

Keep your eyes glued to LCPtoC coz you just never know, we just might have a spontaneous event just for the fun of it...we like to keep you on your crafty toes heheheheh!

PLUS....Come and join the fun in Facebook land!
Join our Facebook Fan Group where you can stay up to date on our shenanigans and share your LCD/CV creations with us as well as share your projects on our company Facebook Pages too! Click on the badges above and below to be magically transported to all our creative realms!

Pop on over to Lost Coast Portal to Creativity and follow us or subscribe to our blog and get our activities delivered
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